


Gentle Persuasion

by theghostsofeurope (baronvonehren)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, there's going to be some nasty stuff going on later on
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-02-17
Updated: 2012-02-18
Packaged: 2017-10-31 08:05:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/341815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baronvonehren/pseuds/theghostsofeurope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim has a presence like magnets. There will be those who are irresistibly pulled in, pulled along, just generally attracted to him. Some of them want money, power, some of them just seem to like crime. Most of them are right wankers. Then there are those who are repulsed by him, pushed away, those angered by him and who plot against him. They want the same thing, oddly enough, or maybe that's not odd at all. I have never met a man who genuinely liked Jim for his personality.</p><p>This is the story about a man who disliked Jim Moriarty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Jim has a presence like magnets. There will be those who are irresistibly pulled in, pulled along, just generally attracted to him. Some of them want money, power, some of them just seem to like crime. Most of them are right wankers. Then there are those who are repulsed by him, pushed away, those angered by him and who plot against him. They want the same thing, oddly enough, or maybe that's not odd at all. I have never met a man who genuinely liked Jim for his personality.

When I enter the room I can't see why anyone would dislike him at all.

My hand grips the plastic grocery bag a bit tighter and I close the door behind me softly, the bag swinging and brushing against my leg. Jim is sitting on the bed, just inside the door. He's in a towel, watching telly (but something tells me 'not really') and waiting. He looks up, looking a bit disinterested.

"What's with this?" I gesture with my empty hand, bag striking my leg with each step I make towards the mini-fridge.

Jim stands, hand holding the knot of his towel. I find myself in the awkward position of feeling a bit disappointed that he's holding it above his navel. "Run me a bath."

Cheeses in the top drawer, carrots in the crisper, yogurt lined up and lunch meat packed in, I stand, grunting. "Why don't you run one yourself, you lazy sod." I saunter off to the small bathroom anyway, "didn't look busy."

I hear Jim huff in response, amused, just before he is drowned out by the roar of the water. Jim takes showers that are warm but not nearly as hot as I'd prefer. I like to exit the shower looking like an anthropomorphic lobster. I frown, "get in here and test the water before I run a whole tub."

His feet slap against the linoleum floor and he leans over me, putting a few fingers in the water and swirling them around. I can feel the heat of his skin through my shirt, even with the few inches between us. He leans a bit closer and plugs the drain before wiping his fingers off on my shoulder. "I left my shampoo in the duffel bag."

I heave a long sigh. "You want me to get it." My knees crack a little as I stand and Jim's feet slap against the floor as I leave. His duffel bag is laying beside the bed, still packed. Understandable, we just arrived this morning in Dover, the weather was awful, and all day he had been either on the phone or sleeping. On the bed lie stacks of papers, arranged in ways to separate them by content. They look like ledgers and cargo manifests.

The faucet turns and I know the tub isn't full, it hasn't been that long. "Sebastian Basher Moran, don't you dare touch those papers." I roll my eyes in response, picking up the duffel bag. It's faster just to let him look through it. Before I can enter he's impatiently added, "hurry up, Seb, honey. Shampoo, conditioner, my soap and that blue bottle."

"You decent?" I enter the bathroom anyway, pointedly looking away from the tub and avoiding the vanity mirror just in case. I drop the bag to the floor, cushioning it with my toe. "Couldn't find it, you have a go. Your bath anyway." I turn to leave, still ignoring Jim's presence in the bathroom altogether. It's tempting to look at him, sitting on the edge of the tub in nothing but a towel.

"No," Jim says loudly, and I hear a pouring that sounds like pissing. "Come back here."

I freeze, comically stiff. "What?" My heart rate jumps and the water rushes on, covering up any response he could have given me. Not that he even has--that isn't a question that even requires a response from him.

I go to stand by the door and look at my toes, wriggling them in my shoes. The leather of my oxfords is perforated, expensive, dark brown--I pointedly attempt to ignore Jim whipping the towel off himself and covering his genitals as he lowers himself down into the warm bubble bath. "There's a reason."

"Is there?" I ask, furrowing my brow and counting the dots.

"There's someone very important that will be here soon," Jim says, and I can hear the crackle and fizzle of bubbles, "and I need to you watch the door and let him in." When I look up, he has sunk down, bubbles rising over his belly and chest and floating just below his eyes. 

"Who?" I ask, and Jim sinks lower into the tub, dunking himself down until his hair is wet. He completely ignores my question. I flip down the lid of the commode and stare at the door, listening for a knock. I wonder if it will be in some sort of secret code, maybe morse code, rapping out letters of safe words.

I only realize how absurd the idea is when I hear two sharp knocks on the wooden door, shaking the shitty hardware. "Coming." I look to Jim. He seems content to lounge in the bath. "You're meeting whoever-this-person-is here? In the bathroom?"

Jim gives me a dismissive wave, flicking water in my direction. "Oh yes, very adult," I jump back, nearly stumbling over my own feet to keep dry. Jim snickers, sinking down under the bubbles again and I leave the bathroom to answer the door.

He is older than I am, probably mid-fifties to sixties. He stands shorter than I do but broader in the chest and bowed, as though he has taken a perpetual blow to the sternum. He has thick calloused hands and he grips a black cane. He stands upright, or at least, as far as he can, and clears his throat. "Mr. Moriarty?"

My brow furrows, "he's just inside." I step back and let him in, closing the door behind him. I watch his balding, grey head as he steps in. I guide him to the bathroom, suddenly aware that the floor has been splashed and so have I.

"Oh, Danny," Jim purrs from the bathtub, shifting in a way that suggests he's crossing his legs but the bubble covers him well. "It's been a long, long time."


	2. Chapter 2

'Danny' stiffens and curtly nods, "yes, sir."

I look between them, narrowing my eyes. I don't say it, but I want to ask 'you know each other?'. Jim is watching me, I find, from the corner of his eye, still smiling up at 'Danny' like a grinning crocodile as he sinks down, under the slowly popping bubbles. 

"Sit down," he snaps, but I know he means both of us. I let 'Danny' take the commode. I sit down on the edge of the tub down by Jim's feet, pointedly looking away from him. Bubbles can only last so long before they disappear. "Now." He spreads himself out, an arm draping out of the tub like a David painting. "You had something to tell me? Know that if you are wasting a single grain of my time I will repay you in double the stone."

Something about that statement makes me uneasy. I think it's because I can imagine him carving bits out of the older man, pound upon pound of flesh. I realize, a bit late, that I would be the one doing the carving.

'Danny' rummages through the pocket of his leather jacket, pulling forth a card. "When I heard about this, Mr. Moriarty, I couldn't believe it at first." His voice is low, respectful, a southern American drawl. His hands shake as he hands me the card. It is cheap paper, flimsy, a business card. At the bottom of the card is a telephone number but I don't recognize the city code.

Jim sighs and stretches out, motioning for me to continue. "Jules Fournier," I read aloud, wrinkling my nose. Jim lolls his head and shifts in the bath, only halfway paying attention. "Conseiller Criminel." The words die in my mouth almost prematurely, but I manage to speak them. I almost wish I hadn't because Jim suddenly stops moving.

'Danny' seems content to continue but I've seen a marked change in Jim's behavior now. He is suddenly attentive. "But it seems as though someone, operating out of Russia--."

"Honey, just tell me what you want to tell me." Jim has disappeared under the water again. With all of his motions, the bubbles are receeding. A thick patch of them covers his chest and knees, and he groups them up and pushes them down. Our eyes meet momentarily and I feel my face redden.

"Yes, sorry sir." 'Danny' clears his throat, "a man in Russia claims he can do your job better than you can."

That confirms it. That it was completely intentional for the Frenchman to call himself 'consulting criminal'.

Suddenly, it's as though the entire good mood, all of Jim's playfulness, disappeared. Just, poof, gone like the bubbles. "Daniel." A quiet descended upon the room, "are you sure?" I hold my breath, watching the man, Daniel, give another curt nod. He looks calm, nonplused, even. I wonder if he has seen this side of Jim often.

Jim's eyes are empty when I look to him. In his anger the bubbles have drifted and he doesn't even realize, or perhaps he no longer cares. "Sebastian, leave."

I linger for a moment, mouth opening and closing in a silent 'why'; Jim doesn't respond. He never has to. The bed springs creak as I sit down and I steady Jim's stacks of paper with an empty hand. I start flipping channels on the muted telly. Jim has the great capacity to be sneaky which isn't frightening or unexpected but it is irritating. I can't hear a thing. On the television, the sun sets over some African savannah.

I can't watch it, not with Daniel in the bathroom with Jim. Not with Jim telling him something that even I can't know. I hear shuffling and move to occupy myself; the plug of the drain pulls. "Sebastian," Jim speaks over the receding water, "see Daniel out and start packing your bags."

Daniel vacates the bathroom, looking mortified and pale-faced. When our eyes meet, I can see the discomfort, "it was nice to meet you, Daniel." I offer him my hand and he looks at it, pausing, before taking it.

"Pleasure," he murmurs, looking as though it were anything but that. 

I let him out and return to my place on the bed, turning the business card over in my hands. On the television, a Nile crocodile snaps up an unsuspecting heron.

In the bathroom, Jim pulls the curtain closed with a smart slide of metal rings over an aluminum rod and the shower turns on. He'll take a while. I only have to fold a few shirts and stick my deodorant into the side pouch of my bag and I'm packed again. "So much for getting comfortable," I sigh, stare up at the ceiling as though beseeching God.

I make a ham sandwich and eat it, along with a cup of yogurt and half a packet of baby carrots in the time it takes Jim to shower. Outside the window, it drizzles in Dover, and I lay back on the bed and take a light nap.

When I awaken Jim is buttoning his shirt, his pants around his thighs. "We're going to France," he tells me softly, not turning around. It's eerie, how he knows I'm awake. "We're going to play a little game with Mr. Fournier." He doesn't sound irritated anymore. He sounds almost excited. He turns around, tucking his white shirt in and smoothing it along his thighs before buttoning his pants. Then he gives me an absolutely vicious grin of all teeth, "well I say 'we'."


End file.
